Frieda Laird – Settling In

Frieda describes how she met her husband and how she managed to make ends meet. She tells the interviewer that she is now Scottish.

INT: What age were you when you got married?

FL: 21.

INT: Gosh that’s quite, that’s quite young. And so how did you meet your husband?

FL: I met him through a lady. She had a baby linen shop and I was working with children at the time, a baby actually, and another child in Shawlands. She had a shop in Shawlands and I went in to buy something for the baby. It was the baby’s birthday and she, the lady said; “Are you from Germany?” I said, “Yes, I am”. And I didn’t like to tell them at the time because the war was on. She said, “Don’t worry telling, about telling me because I have a sister-in-law. She comes from Germany; she comes from Bavaria”.

I said, “Well I was from quite near there.” And she said, “If you like, I’ll take you to Paisley one day”. And she took a liking to me and asked me to her house in Shawlands. And then she took me to Paisley and I met the woman from Germany but I didn’t know what was her background or anything at the time. And she seemed to take a liking to me and took me out and visited me. I was in lodgings at the time and I remember I paid 4 shillings a week for my digs, 4 shillings.

INT: But that was probably still most of your money, I would imagine.

FL: It must be you know but…

INT: So if you were in lodgings but you were looking after the two children did you go every day?

FL: Because I had had a job with a baby before it and I was up every night with the wee one and…Very hard work at the time and I said I’ll get another job. And I had two children to look after and they were older. It was quite a good job, you know, so…

FL: I met her and she took a liking to me and invited me to her house and then I worked; I stayed in…There was a family Cohen, a Jewish family, and I worked for them. And do you know, outside Glasgow, I can’t remember now the place. Can’t remember. It will come to me later on.

FL: I met my future mother-in-law, although I didn’t know it at the time. And she invited me back and she came to visit me and she brought her son with her. And I always remember I went for a walk with him to Cathkin Braes.

FL: Well, he was taken with me. I wasn’t taken that much with him but I couldn’t get peace. He was after me all the time. I don’t know. But when I married him he took quite a lot of drink and he was very hard to suffer especially when I was expecting at the time. And I just put up with it, because I was on my own here, and when you’re on your own and no folks to guide you or anything, you just put up with an awful lot.

FL: I seemed to… he only needed to look at me and I was pregnant. But I had an operation because I didn’t take my monthly and once I started to take it, it came very heavy and every time he looked at me I was pregnant.

INT: Am I right in remembering that when you started selling jewellery was it Mr Stakis?

FL: But I didn’t learn a lot of it at the time. I just… I had to come away from it and then it stopped. I was only learning it for about 8 months or so, the English. And then I came over here.

INT: Ah, so you learned a bit before you came?

FL: Yes, yes. It helped.

INT: And you obviously have an ear for languages.

FL: I like languages. I learned French for a while at grammar school. I went to grammar school in Crailsheim. I passed my exam and that’s what I wanted to do, teach languages. But I never got round to it; I’m useless.

FL: No. I went for a while and then I got married and had children, you know, and after I had, I think, my third child, I stopped it because it was too much for me, you know. And I wasn’t very well having that baby anyway. It was touch and go at the time. I was really quite ill. It was my kidneys and I’ve still got bother with them at times. But I just done what I could possibly do and I never done anything illegal or not clean because I wouldn’t have lived with a man if I hadn’t my ring on my finger. In these days you did that.